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Pakistan's president is defending his recent attempts to engage Israel's government, saying most Pakistanis support his efforts. (AP)
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| By Associated Press November 14, 2005 |
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Pakistan's president is defending his recent attempts to engage Israel's government, saying most Pakistanis support his efforts.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, whose foreign minister recently met with his Israeli counterpart for the first time, said Sunday that there is little danger to his presidency from extremists angered by the diplomatic breakthrough, which both sides have said was the result of Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
"When we are talking to the Israelis and the Israeli foreign minister, or I address the Jewish congress, I am very clear that this is the strategic direction that Pakistan needs to take," Musharraf said on CNN's "Late Edition." "The vast majority of Pakistanis, the media, the intelligentsia, the masses, have all accepted this. Nobody is questioning me at all."
In September, the Pakistani and Israeli foreign ministers met in Turkey, and Musharraf addressed the American Jewish Congress in New York.
Musharraf suggested that his grip on power is strong. "It's not a possibility at all" that radicals could take over Pakistan, he said, pointing to what he called their failures in recent local elections.
"There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that this country is a moderate country, and moderate forces have reasserted themselves, and religious forces have gone down," he said.
Pakistani officials said Saturday that Musharraf told a visiting American Jewish leader last
week that Pakistan would consider formally recognizing Israel only after the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Islamic Pakistan, which has no diplomatic ties with Israel, has long demanded that the Jewish state end its occupation of Palestinian territory and that the Palestinian state should emerge on the world map with Jerusalem as its capital.
While Pakistan is a key Washington ally that supported the U.S.-led war that ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan, some critics have suggested Islamabad isn't doing enough to find al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
But Musharraf said Pakistan's intelligence organizations are working with the military to hunt down bin Laden, who some believe is hiding in the region.
"They are my enemies," he said of the terrorists. "Quite clearly, we are operating against them. And there is no doubt that we will ... keep operating against them. I'm not scared of that."
Musharraf said that relief assistance for the devastating earthquake that struck his country was "reasonably good" and he was grateful for it. But he said international efforts to help reconstruct the country are "certainly not of the level that we expect."
The AP contributed to this report.
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